Rosberg takes pole in the British GP circus

Silverstone delivers a thrilling F1 race, and with plenty of the action attributed to the wrong reasons

A Race of Attrition The British Grand Prix is almost always a celebrated affair; among fans, drivers, teams, the whole bally lot. Despite a few changes to the circuit in recent times, the fast and high-energy track is never short of action. Not to mention the English weather playing havoc and ever willing to make things more compelling.

This weekend had it all: rain, drama and some enticing action. Thursday and Friday saw a lot of rain, with Saturday and Sunday staying dry and allowing the teams some mileage. The highlight before qualifying was Sergio Perez’s McLaren’s left-tyre explosion, bringing back doubts over the safety of Pirelli tyres. Before the Canadian GP there were similar issues with delamination of tyres but the manufacturer claimed it was an adhesion problem, not a construction one, and that they had worked it out.

Perez’s tyre blew again during the race, only this time he wasn’t alone. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), Felipe Massa (Ferrari) and Jean Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso) all suffered the same fate, while many drivers were reported to have cuts on their left-rear tyres. While it was thought to be because of some KERBS, particularly at turn four, mid-race Pirelli issued a brief that tyre pressures needed to be elevated a couple of notches. It meant there were umpteen yellow flags and the safety car came out as well. But the real add-on to the drama came when Sebastian Vettel retired eleven laps from the end because of a failed gear-box.

Rosberg Wins Second Race in 2013 After Monaco, this was Nico Rosberg’s second win of the season, placing him back in contention for the drivers’ championship. In fact the British GP has blown the title-race wide open again, as Vettel’s retirement meant his challengers were able to cut his sizeable lead at the top. The three-time defending champion scored no points, while Fernando Alonso brought his Ferrari home third after starting from P9.

Meanwhile Kimi Raikkonen finished fifth, after starting from P10, though he was running in second after Vettel retired only for his team Lotus to make a bad strategy call and not change his tyres, like Alonso did. Hamilton’s race was wrecked because of the tyre-failure, but he drove an astonishing recovery to finish fourth, whilst Mark Webber finished second after falling to P15 at the first corner itself. Both Force India cars finished in the points again, with Adrian Sutil coming in at P7 and Paul di Resta at P9.

After eight races then, Vettel leads with 132 points while Alonso (111) is second. Raikkonen (98) is third, while Lewis Hamilton (89), Mark Webber (87) and Nico Rosberg (82) are in close pursuit. Elsewhere, Red Bull are comfortably in the lead for the constructors’ title with 219 points. But Mercedes (171) have now overtaken Ferrari (168) for second, while Lotus have fallen off the pace (124) owing to their poor qualifying and abysmal strategy.

The Tyre Debate What this inexplicable state of affairs with the tyres has done is dredge up, once more, the huge debate, as to whether Pirelli are doing a decent job or not. And it has now moved further with tyres exploding at a time when drivers are pushing their cars toward 300 kph. That is not the safety standard Formula One has set for the past two decades and it will be a terrible thing if there is any loss of life during a racing event.

But is this Pirelli’s fault alone? The recent tribunal hearing against Mercedes for helping Pirelli in a test after the Spanish GP and the punishment meted out shows that a lack of testing has clearly hindered Pirelli’s ability to develop their tyres. This is especially since they are only allowed whatever little testing they have with three-year old cars. Moreover, their hands are further tied when teams like Ferrari, Lotus and Force India refuse any mid-season changes to tyre compounds so that it doesn’t reduce their advantage – go figure!

(Chetan Narula is the author of History of Formula One: The Circus comes to India.)